Over the last few months, pilots and airport officials have been getting frequently confused by the new names for the 27 taxiways.

The names have been changed at least twice in six months, the aim being to bring about uniformity in nomenclature. But pilots used to the old names have struggled to identify which taxiways the new names refer to.

On one occasion, officials were about to change the names and sent a notice to airmen (NOTAM), but then withdrew the changes just a day before they would have taken effect. This only increased the confusion, an airport official said. “They said that the signages weren’t ready and so they had to withdraw the NOTAM on the penultimate day,” he said.

To change the name of any taxiway, an advance notice of 56 days is required. This is then added as a supplement to Aeronautical Information Publication (AIP), an international publication that is shared between airports and airlines worldwide on updates and is published once in two years. “But in this case no notifications were issued,” said the official.

Taxiways connect the main runways of an airport with ramps, hangars, terminals and other facilities. Airport operations require pilots to clear the runway within 45-60 seconds after they land. Rapid exit taxiways connecting the runways to other installations are built at particular angles at which aircraft can be manoeuvred. “In such a scenario, there is very little scope for confusion and if we are used to a particular name for a particular taxiway then we cannot react to the name change at the last moment,” said a Jet Airways pilot.

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